Gulf Labor and Precarious Workers Rights

This panel was organized and introduced by Gregory Sholette to be centered around the events of the Gulf Labor Coalition, whose the most recent initiative has involved worker rights at the construction site of the Guggenheim's Abu Dhabi location. After introducing the most recent action, the Precarious Workers' Pageant, which was performed on August 7th at the Venice biennial, the other participants introduced their contributions to the discussion. Setare Arashloo shared a part of the documentary film she is making about the Precarious Workers' Pageant. Marco Baravalle discussed his work with the S.a.L.E. Docks in Venice, especially their efforts to illuminate and interrogate the labor conditions of the workers employed in Venice's social movements. Professor Andrew Hemingway gave a presentation about the history of the Paterson, NJ pageant strike in 1913, whose tactics have influenced the Precarious Workers' Pageant. Barrie Cline, from the Workers' Art Coalition, spoke about some of the art work that she does with construction workers, and the connection between their art and their technical skills. Founder of the Aaron Burr Society, Artist, and Professor Jim Costanzo discussed his involvement with the project and stressed that we all have the right to use our own creativity, which is something present in both his personal work and in these kinds of activist projects. Finally, Andrew Ross discussed the book The Gulf: High Culture/Hard Labor, which is a collection of documents about the work the Gulf Labor Coalition has been doing for the past five years. The book, which was for sale at the event, contains both archives of fieldwork and also tactics.